Eighties London were all aesthetes and poetry. I thought it was the bollocks 'til I found the Navvy Mission. My eyes were opened wide. Fell in with the navvies laying the London Extension. Oh, the randies--drinking sprees that lasted for days. Learned everything I know about boozing in two glorious months. They were living in huts on the side of the line. All that lovely dirt and cholera; drinking, gambling, scrapping, womanising, I couldn't believe my luck. The more the mission did the better it got. They built dorms and gift-wrapped my night out. Brawling mad-like, riot in a can: take on a dormitory full of men and walk away smiling with their heads, driven through with nails. Fine times.
Got dragged off to Italy come eighteen-ninety-something and shown my place. Sitting there, watching Angelus witter on to that Le Fanu git, and I still can't believe no-one cottoned on to him publishing after he died! Made nothing but a bitch butÉmy head was full of him. Stuck with my new name though. He even got to calling me Spike by the time we got to Romania; which was not exactly known for its striking social scene so I satisfied myself with massacres instead. Everyone loves a good massacre and anyone that says they don't is either mental or lying or both.
China, the Boxers, Fists of Righteous daft bint. Never really got into that one myself, them being bit anti the foreign devils, but they put on a right good show. And the Slayer there, she was radiant with death and desperation; doing her made my night? Made my fucking century. The terror, the panic, the missionaries! Oh, blood and zealots, what a laugh that was.
Spain in the forties, least said about that the better.
Oh Lord, Italy in the fifties though! Me, Dru, and the Mafia, now that was a good time. Suits sharp as garrottes and every bugger had a moped. No lie, everyone did. Spent two years pissed out of my head standing in nightclubs saying ciao. Night sailing and dark drinking; everyone looked the other way; it was practically an art form getting anyone to notice the bodies. Playing baccarat, dipping my head to some crazy jazz and dining on the jet-set. Was sorry when that fizzled out; I liked baccarat, and Dru did love that music.
Woodstock nineteen sixty-nine, the flower people, mmm they were just delicious. Peace and love and guitars screaming louder than the cosmic-pixie lunchables. Though now I think about it, I only had about two to eat the whole time I was there. Tried so hard to start a fight and nearly fucked the whole thing off, until I had a bite to eat and ended up off my tits dancing to the Grateful sodding Dead. Well, I say dancing, more like crouching on the ground looking at the blades of grass and having my first, and only, entirely lucid conversation with Drusilla.
Peace and love did my head right in, needed a break from it all and we ran away homeward. Got there just in time for the greatest thing I ever heard to explode all over England. The Pistols, The Buzzcocks, The Ramones, the one and only thing to tempt me away from that had to be her. Went off searching for her, over to New York and took punk with me, and Christ if that wasn't the best move I ever made. Summer of Sam it were, nineteen seventy-seven. Day I killed her, Nikki, Slayer, all the lights went out, all over the city. Blackout lasted for a day and a night and we had the biggest party. Demons, vampires, all together looting and cavorting: fan-fucking-tastic.
Never got over that one. Don't think anyone'll ever screech as loud as those punks, grappling and brawling, spitting hate. Begging for death and holding on to life in this drawn-out scream that I can still hear when I wrap on my duster and jump in fists first.
